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It was Friday the 13th 1993 (night of a full moon); a man you knew by reputation only,
invited you to a party. The mysterious man was one, “Charles Escott” and he seemed to
know more about you than you would like. The party was at Escott’s San Francisco mansion.
On the guests list you found, Jamie of the Clan Blackrose, a jet setting Scottish Lord, who
was down on his luck, Peter David a well-known Sci-Fi writer, Delaney who seems like a nut
case, John Hex the son of a multi billionaire, Morgan LeFay looks like a “witch” want-a-be.
Harry P. Lovecraft, he looks like a bad 1940’s detective, Parson Sean O’Leary he seems to
be a man of uncommon faith, but also knows the value of a good cigar, and Patrick J. Tull 6’
9” 280# of Cajun.
At the party you talked to the other guests and found the only thing you had in common with
them was none of them knew Escott personally. As the party progressed and you tried to
find some link with others, and you discovered you all have talents and unusual skills. When
you finally met Escott, he offered you a position as a freelancer for his detective agency—or
“PRIVATE AGENCY,” as he put it. As you were talking over his offer, Escott received a
call.
The call was from a member of a Chinatown’s Tong gang who owed Escott a debt of honor.
The caller told Escott that his friend Annie Develan had been murdered, and her body was in
an alley on the edge of Chinatown. Escott asked the caller to watch over Annie’s body until
he could send people in.
Your first case for Escott was to solve Annie’s murder and bring him the name of the person
responsible. Escott told you he did not think Annie had an enemy in the world and all that
knew her loved her. He told you all about Annie, including the fact that she was a 500 year
old vampire who only drank the blood of animals.
In the alley, you found Annie’s body next to one of the dumpsters behind the Bamboo House
Restaurant. She had a stake in her heart and her head was a few feet from the body. When
you looked the body over, you found that her canines were broken off, and her blood was like
water. You found her purse next to one of the dumpsters.
As you looked for more clues, you saw Delaney talking to an old trashcan. When you asked
her, she told you she was talking to the old man setting on the trashcan. As you talked to
Delaney, you discovered she was actually talking to a ghost setting on the trashcan. The
ghost told her a big man dressed all in black dumped the body. He also told you the man
walked like a man in pain, and he dropped to his knees as he dumped the body. The ghost
gave you part of the license number of the car. The group decided to go to Annie’s house.
At the house, you found Annie had made a mansion out of three adjacent brownstones. The
first thing you found was the body of her guard dog in the entry hall. Jamie told you, a heavy
mace crushed the dog’s skull. “One blow by an expert” Looking through the house, you
found Annie’s office. It took the team of Lovecraft and Jamie to bypass her security on the
computer. The computer contained Annie’s diary, it told of her life from her first days as a
vampire to her more recent life of making new identities for other vampires. The computer
also contained her client’s list, as well as her will. Using the office phone, Mr. Tull ran down
the license number of the car from the alley.
The car was registered to St. Patrick’s a small Catholic Church on the edge of Chinatown.
Annie’s will leave all of her money to St. Patrick’s. In the trash you found a first draft of a
letter to a Father Michael asking for his help to end her five hundred years of pain.
Upstairs, you found Annie’s bedroom, where she was killed. In the floor were four iron
spikes and rope where Annie was tied down. From the pattern of blood on the wall,
Lovecraft and Mr. Tull could tell her head had been cut off before she was dead. You also
found a spot of dried blood in the middle of the room next to two small candles and the
imprint of a heavy book. The group decided it was time to talk to the good Father.
At the Church, you found the old black Ford the ghost told you about parked in the back.
The back of the driver’s seat had dried blood on it. Annie’s blood was all over the inside of
the trunk. Due to the late hour, the group had to wake up one of the other priests. Father
Sean told you Father Michael had been in a very bad accident and had to be rushed to the
hospital. It took a great deal of persuasion to get the name of the hospital, but you got it.
Jamie kept the nurse busy while the group slipped into Father Michael’s room. When you
confronted him with the evidence, he broke down crying. After he pulled himself together,
he told you how for months Annie had begged for his help. She needed his help to end her
curse, to free her from being a vampire. He told you Annie had found an old spell book—a
very old book that held the secrets of turning lead to gold, of stopping the aging process, of
bringing the dead back to life, and a cure vampirism.
He told you he was in the middle of reading the spell when he heard the guard dog howl.
The next thing he knew, he was in the E.R. and young Sean was giving him the last rites.
After talking to the priest, the group decided to go back to Escott’s.
As you left the hospital, Delaney said she sensed danger from the parking lot. When Mr.
Tull peeked out, he saw the face of a man he thought he had already killed. The face
belonged to a voodoo priest that had tried to kill Mama Tull. A short battle between the
voodoo priest and his submachine gun-wielding zombies versus the team broke out.
The team captured the priest, and with Mr. Tull’s “gentle persuasion,” he gave you the name
of the man who hired him—Jonathan Hex. John told you Jonathan is the head of
Hexcorp…and his father. He told you Hexcorp is slowly taking over the world by buying it
bit by bit. He told you Hexlab’s main US office was located outside the city. He also told you
he knew Hexlab was doing a great deal of research toward stopping the aging process by
modifying the structure of human blood and that a working spell book would be invaluable
to them.
The team decided to take the voodoo priest back to Escott’s. On the way to Escott’s
mansion, the priest began begging not to taken to Escott’s. At the moment the car entered
the estate, the priest howled out in pain and you saw him age 20 years in 20 seconds.
In the mansion, you found two members of the Vampire High Council waiting to take the
voodoo priest off your hands. One of the vampires told you they were not going to kill him.
In fact, he said, they planned to keep him alive for a very long time.
The team decided to get some rest before going on to raid the lab. Some time around noon
that day the team became active, but Sean was nowhere to be found. The housekeeper told
you he left shortly after you went to bed. He took a bag of wooded stakes from the armory in
the basement and asked her to make a pot of coffee and some sandwiches. He said he had
“vamps to do and things to see.” She said he had a long list of names and addresses.
Over brunch John told you it would be best if he didn’t go on the raid. He told you because
of his family, they could sense him coming. But he gave you the overall layout of the lab and
told you the secret lab would be somewhere underground. He warned you magic might be
part of the security systems. He said he would set up a distraction at Hexcorp main office, to
draw off as many guards as possible. He also told you that not all of the guards would be
human. It was decided to raid the lab at midnight.
At five till twelve, six vans tore out of the parking lot. They were heading in the direction of
a red glow. One car was left in the lot, and the building was dark. The team made its way to
one of the small doors on the back loading dock. Lovecraft took one look at the lock and
told you the lock and security system were from his time. With more than a little help from
Morgan, he bypassed the security and the lock. The warehouse was empty and the team
made its way to the main part of the building.
On the way, you noticed pentagrams on the floor inside each door. Lovecraft told you the
pentagrams were used to summon and hold demons in front of the doors. Morgan told you it
would be very bad to break one of the lines of the pentagram. Nonetheless, the lack of
guards made you a little nervous as the team made its way to the main elevator.
Over the elevator doors you saw a camera. As a joke Mr. Tull said to Morgan, “If youall a
witch, turn it into a toad.” He stopped laughing when she did. The spell she used almost
worked too, but in her eagerness, she rushed it and turned the camera into a Helltoad (a foot
long with two-inch fangs dripping poison).
In the back of the elevator, Jamie found a concealed panel with five buttons all marked
“down” behind it. Lovecraft said it was always best to start at the bottom and work their
way back up. He hit five; in a cloud of smoke and flames he went flying across the elevator,
landing at Mr. Tull’s feet. Tull laughed, “Thanks” I needed a light, as he picked Lovecraft
up and lit a Camel off one of the small fires.
Morgan yelled, “Pick a button fast, he set off a magic trap”. “Peter said “Three’s my lucky
number” and hit the button. The elevator began to move down.
The elevator stopped and the doors began to open. Delaney cried out “Something bad is
waiting outside for us”. Morgan cast Dispel Magic at the door. Outside on the floor, you
found a demon in two halves lying across a broken pentagram. In unison from Lovecraft
and Morgan you heard, “OOPS”!
The elevator opened to an office, empty except for a large all-black crystal desk. Behind the
desk was a door marked “Top Secret”. Lovecraft noticed with his cyber eye the desk was
actually a flattop computer. The computer was set up so you could only see it in ultraviolet.
After ten minutes he said, “I’m in, but all this corporate mumbo jumbo is out of my league”.
Peter said, “Let me at it”. Finding a pair of UV glasses, he began to dance his way into the
date base.
Peter pulled the book’s location from the computer, a small safe in the back of Laboratory
Blood I. Mr. Tull “I’m going to open that there safe like a beautiful girl opens an old man’s
wallet, I guar-un-tee”. It was decided it would be faster to split up—Peter at the computer,
and the others to go for the book.
As if in a trance, Delaney walked up to the Top Secret door. As the door slowly opened, a
machine-like voice said, “welcome back number five, and are you here for your check up? It’
s long overdue”. Vacant-eyed, Delaney began to slowly move down the hall, as if she knew
where she was going. She walked past door after door, until she stopped at a door marked
Genetically Engineered Life Forms. The voice sounded again. “Welcome” as the door
opened with an icy hiss.
The room was covered in ice, and had the smell of death. It looked like a mad doctor’s
laboratory. In the middle of the room, you saw a “man” put together by committee strapped
to a table. He was a giant, over eight feet tall, heavily muscled, a living Frankenstein’s
monster.
Lovecraft cried out “My God! It’s a Golem”! Delaney untied the creature. “He coming with
me”, was all she said. The golem was like a very scared child, but did whatever Delaney told
him to do. With “baby” in tow, the team made its way to Blood One.
The lab’s door opened for Delaney, like all of the other. Inside you saw two women and a
man hanging from the ceiling by their ankles. A machine on the floor was drinking in their
blood. Jamie and Lovecraft got the three down. Morgan helped them with her magic as best
she could, but healing magic was not one of her strong points. Mr. Tull opened the safe “like
an old man’s wallet” in no time.
The safe was empty; Mr. Tull found a small ring in the bottom. He gave it a pull, and the
bottom popped up, the book was within.
Peter was slowly taking Hexcorp apart bit by bit. From across the room he heard the
elevator moving up. When the elevator moved down, and the doors opened, three guards in
body armor, carrying pump shotguns ran out. They ran through the outer office nonstop. It
was a good thing for Peter, as at the time he was hiding under the desk. The moment they
were through the door, Peter popped up and began pecking out a warning to the team in
Blood One.
The computer came to life by itself. Onscreen was a warning from Peter:
THREE MEN WITH GUNS. NO, BIG GUNS. NO, BIG, BIG GUNS.
Are on their way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jamie quickly set up an ambush in the hall. Jamie popped out of a lab, and with one blast
from his shotgun; he took off the head of one of the guards. As the other two turned to face
Jamie, Morgan stepped out of the door behind them. She cast a Lightning Bolt, sending one
down in flames.
Lovecraft walked up to the remaining stunned guard, and putting his .45 to the guard’s head,
said “isn’t that gun getting heavy?” The gun hit the floor and the guard pleaded for his life.
When Delaney and the Golem came out of hiding, the guard horrified, gasped “Dear God!
They put it back together! And you’re the kid, the one that ran away! They don’t pay me
enough for this!”
Jamie told Delaney to go around, and open all of the lab doors and jam them open. She had
the Golem pull the doors off their hinges. Jamie started mixing chemicals, he told Lovecraft
to go and open all of the gas jets. The team quickly made its way out of the building and into
the car. From over a mile away, you could see the laboratory burst into a ball of flame.
Then the ball turned into a demonic shape pointing a finger at the team’s car.
Back at Escottt’s the team gave he a rundown of the night’s fun and games. It was decided
to give the book to Escott for safekeeping. Lovecraft asked if he could give the book a going-
over. The moment he touched the book, he vanished in a cloud of smoke. Escott said, “I
think he’s gone back to his own time, and I think it’s best if you all returned to your normal
lives, and if I need your help in the future, I’ll call on you.”

                                                                       End?

2005 GenCon

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